The Economic Club of New York is a nonpartisan and nonprofit membership organization that promotes the study and discussion of social, economic, and political questions. The collection consists of meeting transcripts, photographs, programs, and audio recordings of the club’s meetings.

Biographical/historical information

The Economic Club of New York was founded by the National Economic League of Boston secretary, J.W. Beatson, along with four New York City business leaders in 1907. Taking inspiration from established New England-based economic clubs in Boston, New Haven, Providence, Portland, and Springfield; the New York club was established with the objective of hosting business professionals to discuss economic, social, and political issues in an impartial forum. Members hail from among senior leadership of the business and financial communities, and represent a wide array of ideologies and diversity of opinions.

The primary activity of the club is the dinners and luncheons they host in which a prestigious guest of honor is invited to speak to club members and their invited associates. Each event features a speech followed by a discussion period when club members, who have been selected prior to the event, ask questions of the speaker. Although events are not open to the public, they are accessible to members of the news media to cover the speech and ensuing conversation.

Since its inception, the club has hosted over one thousand leaders from financial, legal, political, and news media sectors, which has included international heads of state, central bankers, Supreme Court Justices, military leaders, ambassadors, scientists, global business entrepreneurs, labor leaders, corporate executives, and university presidents. The club has hosted a number of former United States presidents including, Woodrow Wilson, William H. Taft, Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush; international leaders such as Winston Churchill, Mikhail Gorbachev, Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Yitzhak Rabin, Corazon Aquino, and Zhu Rongji; and United States politicians that include Lloyd Bentsen, Dick Cheney, Bill Bradley, Mario Cuomo, Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich, Rudolph Giuliani, Barry Goldwater, Robert Kennedy, Edward Koch, Fiorello La Guardia, John McCain, Water Mondale, Dan Quayle, Charles Rangel, and Christine Todd Whitman.

Scope and arrangement

The Economic Club of New York records date from 1910 to 2008 and document meetings hosted by the club. The files contain meeting transcripts, photographs, programs, and audio recording of meetings.

The majority of the files are typed meeting transcripts, which date from 1910 to 1980, and indicate each meeting’s location, date, and the names of the guests of honor. Some notable guests of honor are William Howard Taft (1919), Fiorello La Guardia (1921), Winston Churchill (1932), Henry Ford (1949), Robert F. Kennedy (1961), Richard Nixon (1952), John F. Kennedy (1962), and Eugene McCarthy (1968).

There is also small selection of photographs and programs that accompany the meeting files. Box 9 consists exclusively of large group photographs dating from 1953 to 1957, which depict club members and their guests at dinner meetings.

The audio recordings date from 1972 to 2008, and contain speeches by guests of honor and club members. Notable guests of honor include George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jacques Chirac, Bob Dole, Gerald Ford, Alan Greenspan, Mikhail Gorbachev, Henry Kissinger, Walter Mondale, Ed Koch, George Pataki, Dan Quayle, Yitzhak Rabin, David Rockefeller, Yitzhak Shamir, and George Soros. Most meetings which have audio recordings do not have written transcripts. Audio recordings are unavailable pending digitization.

A detailed listing of speakers and meeting topics can be found as an Additional Resource.